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Livin'
With The Sims:
theAntiELVIS explores the wild and wacky world that is Will Wright's The Sims,
asking the inevitable quesiton, "is The Sims the first step toward a virtual
life where everyone is Swedish?"

This may seem a bit mystical,
so let's go back to the concrete examples, and talk about picking up
objects some more. In the real world, it is generally as simple as moving
towards the object you want to pick up, and then deciding to pick it
up. A designer should be able to see that the expectation is that there
are just two commands involved - 1) get within reach of object, and
2) pick up object. For the game to feel "right", the game needs to try
to match the expectation that there be only two commands as much as
possible. The details of translating those expectations between reality
and the game world is where a designer's real skill comes in and is
not a subject for this column, and anyway, before the translation can
occur the expectations need to be identified.

Let's look at some common
situations and the expectations most people would have in them. Carrying
an object: if you have a good hold on the object, you don't expect to
drop it unless someone or something tries to knock it out of your hands,
and you expect to be able to trivially place it on any good sized surface.
Climbing a ladder: you expect to be able to get on and off the ladder
at platforms with little thought, and to be able to ascend and descend
without risk of falling off. Jumping onto something: if the object is
large, stable, and not very high or far away, you expect to be able
to hop on to it and land on solid footing. These are all physical situations,
and determining these expectations is as simple as reflecting on experiencing
them. Of course, if you've never carried anything or climbed a ladder
or jumped on a table, you may need to go and try (even game designers
need real-world experience!).

I picked those three situations
because they also exist in games, and the expectations are usually violated.
In Trespasser, it can be a chore just to carry an object around
- even when out of combat, brushing against walls and objects can wrench
it out of your hands, and placing something to rest where you want it
is near impossible. No other 3D games have really let you carry an object
in front of you like Trespasser, and few let you drop objects
- Thief is one that does, and actually has similar, though lesser
problems. Ladder climbing is a particular fascination of mine, as I've
never seen a first-person 3D game do it at all well. Half-Life was
particularly disturbing until I figured out that the safe way to go
down a ladder was to ignore the reality of the situation and to face
down towards the floor, but dismounts onto high platforms to the side
were risky throughout the game. As for jumping onto tables, 3D games
usually tend to fall into the "why the hell can't I jump high/far enough"
camp, or the "I keep sliding off/jumping over it" camp.

Even if you meet all the
realism expectations, however, you can still wind up with a game thatís
not fun. People have a wide range of gameplay expectations as well,
most important among them that they are able to win. It's certainly
not realistic that a solitary hero can triumph against overwhelming
odds, but it is what most people want. It's also not realistic to expect
to be able to carry fifteen different weapons and hundreds of rounds
of ammunition, but that too is the norm. Because these gameplay expectations
are often fundamentally unrealistic, however, they can clash with the
realism expectations. If the balance is not carefully maintained, the
whole game can wind up either too realistic or too "gamey," and neither
is much fun to most people. Gameplay expectations are often recently
acquired and faddish, however - when videogames were first introduced,
for instance, the solitary hero against impossible odds inevitably lost
(Space Invaders, Asteroids, Robotron, etc). Because
of this continual change, designers can feel safer about not meeting
every last one of the large heap of gameplay requests which come pouring
in over the net, if their gut feeling leads them in a different direction.

Explaining exactly how a
designer squares realism and gameplay would probably fill another few
columns, and I only set out today to show that both are important, and
designers (and the rest of the development team) should not ignore or
be afraid of either one. Perhaps the best way to close would be that
with some examples of how I would change the balance between realism
and gameplay in the games I mentioned at the start:

Trespasser - could
have been more fun if the arm was more context sensitive and could be
controlled with higher-level commands, and if we had violated our sense
of realism enough to either make the character faster or the areas smaller,
or give some other quick-travel feature.

Half-Life - could
have actually used a lower character speed, or at least more-realistic
player physics, as I felt like I was rollerblading the whole time. And
better ladder climbing...

Thief - could have
used more game-like bow and blackjack interfaces. It's frustrating that
even the most perfectly lined up arrow to the head barely ever seems
to down a guard, or that blackjacking is next to impossible. However
tough either would be in real life, your character is supposed to be
an expert at them, so there should be more player assistance to concentrate
gameplay on choosing when to do them, not how to do them.

Baldur's Gate - needs
more realism in the conversation system (especially kill the idiotic,
jokey NPC one-liners that have nothing to do with the text of the conversations),
less realism in the number of NPCs wandering about and the annoying,
old-school weight limits and party changing (most RPGs for years have
done you the courtesy of having departing characters drop all their
stuff, and "advanced" RPGs like those on consoles have gone even further
by allowing you to swap characters in and out of the active party so
you never have to go through unfun fretting about who to bring along,
as well as providing infinite inventories).

Zelda 64 - needs more
realism in terms of having better dialogue: they are making the series
more and more adult (or at least young adult) - isn't it time to bring
the writing up to at least Star Wars level?